First of all, many apologies to those of you still using this site. Things really have ground to a halt over these last few months, largely as a result of my workload accumulating into something too daunting to tackle on a casual basis. But I'm now back and, even though I'm doing the May Feature September, I think things will pick up again in the weeks and months ahead.

What I want to talk about in this Feature is something stemming from a comment I overheard in a cinema several months ago. I can't even remember what film I was there to see, but I recall one of the trailers being shown was for the then upcoming G.I. Joe adaptation. As the trailer neared its conclusion, a man behind me proclaimed – quite loudly, and preceded by a sizeable sigh – that “CGI ruins everything”. And this is not an opinion unique to him; you only need to spend a brief time browsing film reviews – from both professionals and amateurs – to read similar sentiments. I'm all for differing opinions, but sometimes I hear or read viewpoints that are nothing but stupid – and “CGI ruins everything” is one of them.

CGI is a tool. Just like rotoscoping is a tool, matte painting is a tool, stop motion is a tool, and miniatures are a tool. These are all special effects options available to film-makers who want to create something that doesn't exist in real life, that is not physically possible to film, or for a myriad of other reasons. On that basis, there is no difference between these more practical special effects, and the technical wizardry of CGI and visual effects. And another thing they have in common is that these tools, techniques or options should never, of themselves, be classed as problematic. The problem is never with the tools – the problem is with how they are utilised.

When Steven Spielberg was planning to make Jurassic Park, CGI technology was very much in its infancy. Various films such as The Abyss and Young Sherlock Holmes had experimented with creating weird and wonderful computerised elements, but the concept of creating living, breathing dinosaurs was a major step forward. Spielberg approached stop motion expert Phil Tippett, and asked him to create many of the dinosaur effects for the film with his 'go motion' technique. He reluctantly agreed, stating that the limits of the method would be unlikely to suffice the film's requirements. Then some ILM animators came along, produced some test footage of CGI dinosaurs, and the rest is history. Tippett stayed on as a consultant and special effects supervisor, but there are only a couple of shots in the entire film where stop motion effects were used. Incidentally, the line in the film about someone being 'extinct' as opposed to merely 'out of a job', comes from the conversation between Tippett and Spielberg upon seeing the CGI dinosaurs.

I mention this story for several reasons. First of all, to counter the fuddy-duddy accusation that CGI can't match older and more traditional special effects techniques. Well, I have just given an example of a stop motion expert saying that his methods would not have been capable of delivering the quality that CGI work eventually did. That's not to say that CGI work – no matter how dreadfully done – is always better than other methods, because it isn't. But it highlights how the technology has opened new doors of opportunity for film-makers, and is best-suited to tackle challenges thought impossible in years gone by.

But the second – and more important – reason why I mentioned this story, is because Jurassic Park is a perfect example of two things; both CGI done properly, and CGI used properly. The quality of the CGI dinosaurs is still of a very high standard; indeed, several newer films featuring dinosaurs fail to match the standard that film achieved. However, would you be surprised to learn that there are only around 50 shots in the film that feature CGI elements? This is because they are so brilliantly accompanied by the use of state-of-the-art models, and other special effects techniques. The film uses CGI in shots which could not be accomplished by other methods, while retaining those methods in shots that are more appropriate.

This is why I stressed earlier on that what is so important is how the tool is used – not which tool is used. Because CGI used properly can look better than anything else; CGI done badly can look dreadful, as indeed can any other effects technique. Just a few examples; the para-surfing sequence in Die Another Day looked rubbish because the CGI work was shoddy, not because the scene was beyond the capabilities of the technology. Similarly – and in a film with the same director – the car crash in Along Came A Spider that is computer generated looked artificial and computer generated because to make a CGI car crash is incredibly complicated. Again, it's not that the technology can't do it; it's that when it is used for something which could be done by other means – such as crashing some real cars together – it will always look worse if it doesn't look as real as the real thing - if you catch my drift.

In some respects, CGI offers limitless possibilities. I recall Jurassic Park maestro and six-time Oscar-winner Dennis Muren saying a few years ago that they could create a completely lifelike CGI person if the effort was properly directed and the funding sufficient. And this ties in with a long-held opinion I have had about the technology, and that is how it's a victim of its own success. Think of the films with ground-breaking CGI effects done to an incredibly high standard – think of the Transformers, Davy Jones and Gollum, and of course our familiar dinosaurs. And now think of films with poor or mediocre CGI effects. Doing this can leave you wondering whether the same tools are even being used in different films, and this is part of the challenge CGI faces. Because we know how good it can be, weaker examples are considered less forgivable, and we can sometimes end up getting frustrated at the whole concept of CGI. In the world of practical effects, stop motion will always look like stop motion and models will always look like models, to some degree or another – however good they are – and we cut these methods some slack. But now we have gotten used to photorealism and cutting-edge visual effects - cartoony movement, flat texturing and lazy compositing seem inexcusable.

To conclude, it is often said that you shouldn't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and this saying has some relevance in the world of special effects technologies. When people get angry at CGI they tend to do so for two reasons; either because the nutcracker – CGI in cases where it is the most suitable tool – isn't of a high enough standard, or because using a sledgehammer instead makes it too difficult to hit the nut – in cases where CGI is being used used for so-called unsuitable purposes. Truth be told, I personally don't think there are many things CGI can't achieve. But in order to drive up standards and keep they high, some people need to learn the distinction between blaming the tool and blaming the creator. Because it is only through constructive criticism and thoughtful professionalism that the potential of this revolutionary technology will continue to be unlocked.

© David Mercier
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